[westtip]

Originally Posted by MYOB

There's a slight problem comparing the WRC to the Dart and the Luas, which is that the usage figures of the WRC are so low that the "old chestnut" is completely true.

+1 MYOB its the part they just don't get. The project was doomed to failure simply on the grounds of demographics. Its the old chestnut that the Wesht was being starved out of existence without this railway that really is the painful experience.

Was staying with friends near stanstead aiport last week We wallked the Flitch Way http://www.gps-routes.co.uk/routes/h...nd-cycle-route

A greenway route along an old victorian branch line running through Essex. It was full of families out walking and cycling, stopping off at cafe on the route in one of the old stations. The people in the area love it. Of course there are loads of examples of such local greenways in the UK, and the funny thing is most of them get used by more people per day than the ennis athenry line!

And just think what we could have on the WRC from Collooney to Ennis had we got the imagination. It would be a tourist mecca.

[eth0]

Originally Posted by westtip

+1 MYOB its the part they just don't get. The project was doomed to failure simply on the grounds of demographics. Its the old chestnut that the Wesht was being starved out of existence without this railway that really is the painful experience.

Was staying with friends near stanstead aiport last week We wallked the Flitch Way http://www.gps-routes.co.uk/routes/h...nd-cycle-route

A greenway route along an old victorian branch line running through Essex. It was full of families out walking and cycling, stopping off at cafe on the route in one of the old stations. The people in the area love it. Of course there are loads of examples of such local greenways in the UK, and the funny thing is most of them get used by more people per day than the ennis athenry line!

And just think what we could have on the WRC from Collooney to Ennis had we got the imagination. It would be a tourist mecca.

Eventually the greenway will become so popular we'd need a small tram beside the greenway just to transport people to different parts of it. Faster trains from dublin to sligo because tourists arriving in dublin cant wait to get to the greenway. A whole city could be built around it and kick start the Celtic Tiger 3.0

[Aard]

^^ Eh, the whole point of a greenway is that people walk or cycle it. Transporting them by tram defeats the purpose.

What a red herring!

[eth0]

Originally Posted by Aard

^^ Eh, the whole point of a greenway is that people walk or cycle it. Transporting them by tram defeats the purpose.

What a red herring!

Ah but ya have to look after the ould wans and people who dont have time to walk all of it

[westtip]

Originally Posted by eth0

Ah but ya have to look after the ould wans and people who dont have time to walk all of it

eth0 your sarcasm is wasted. However your reference to ould wans is interesting as the grey euro/dollar/pound and expenditure by greying baby boomer tourists is what will make a greenway so cost effective. This is the problem with those that just don't gettit. Railways are not being opened in sparsely populated rural areas, Extinct C19th railway alignments have been put to good use as greenways across Europe and the United States. But in Ireland we have to cowtow to one pressure group who claim to be right because they have been bleating the same message for 35 years and because the county councillors in one or two counties have hung their career cloaks on this peg and don't have gumption to question their own narrow convictions. A greenway will not create Celtic Tiger 3.0 - it will however give a sense of realism to post Celtic Tiger 1.0. This country needs more tourist euros not more subvented empty rural trains.

[Solair]

This argument was perhaps true in the past, and it is true IF those companies can win public tenders in France.

However, there are cases where Bombardier and Siemens have won French LRT contracts ahead of Alstom and other French companies.

Light rail would make some sense on a small scale in Cork btw. It has a metropolitan area of about 420,000 people.

The WRC simply makes no economic sense though. It's not achieving anything at all and seems to be of no benefit whatsoever to the local area.

It would have made more sense to open the lines linking into Galway's commuter towns and ensuring a decent frequency of local commuter trains than slashing the cash on this thing. A rail investment like that might have been beneficial to the West.

[yer man!]

I don't think there's much of a point anymore in saying the same thing over and over and over and over again, that it shouldn't have been built and that it should be shut down, personally I think it shouldn't have been built but it's built now and there's a commitment there so it will not be shut down for the foreseeable future so there's little point in bitc*ing constantly. Ways to try and allow the line attract more people need to be looked at. Of course the population density is low along the line but there is a lot of people living within 15mins of a station. Look at park and ride in Galway during december for example, nobody thought it would attract very many people but it did and was a great success (albeit subsidized). One of the main reasons for this was that it was so cheap, €2 to park the car and get the bus into the city, bargain! Same idea could be adopted along this line, people park their car for free at any station an get a commuter ticket for cheaper than the bus and you would have people using it. Gort for example has many commuters passing through it everyday for work, if some of them got the train return for like €6 and free parking at the station I think they would gladly go for that, you can't park at many bus stops and if you can then it'll be charged. If it's cheap they will come!!

[foggy_lad]

Originally Posted by yer man!

I don't think there's much of a point anymore in saying the same thing over and over and over and over again, that it shouldn't have been built and that it should be shut down, personally I think it shouldn't have been built but it's built now and there's a commitment there so it will not be shut down for the foreseeable future so there's little point in bitc*ing constantly.

If it is shut down a lot of money much needed elsewhere will be saved!

Ways to try and allow the line attract more people need to be looked at. Of course the population density is low along the line but there is a lot of people living within 15mins of a station. Look at park and ride in Galway during december for example, nobody thought it would attract very many people but it did and was a great success (albeit subsidized).

There are thousands of people living within 15 minutes of the park and ride in Galway but nobody living out in the sticks and anybody with a car and sense will drive to Galway or limerick rather than get an expensive noisy train and if shopping they will be much more comfortable getting their purchases home rather than dragging them to the station, onto train then off train and into the car anyway for the last 15-20 minutes.



One of the main reasons for this was that it was so cheap, €2 to park the car and get the bus into the city, bargain! Same idea could be adopted along this line, people park their car for free at any station an get a commuter ticket for cheaper than the bus and you would have people using it.

So the answer is throw even more money down the toilet that is the western rail corridor? It is already massively subsidised and Irish rail are on their knees as far as money goes so can't afford to lose money on pipe dreams! It would already be cheaper to send each person in their own taxi but your suggestion makes sense if they were to buy every passenger a bus ticket it would be cheaper than running the train!


Gort for example has many commuters passing through it everyday for work, if some of them got the train return for like €6 and free parking at the station I think they would gladly go for that, you can't park at many bus stops and if you can then it'll be charged. If it's cheap they will come!!

People don't need to park at the bus stops because they are situated much closer to where people live unlike a Victorian railway that has not moved with the times in either alignment or speed!

Tear up the rails and save the country an absolute fortune!

[yer man!]

Originally Posted by foggy_lad

People don't need to park at the bus stops because they are situated much closer to where people live unlike a Victorian railway that has not moved with the times in either alignment or speed!

Tear up the rails and save the country an absolute fortune!

You do know there are a lot of people who live in the countryside whereby bus stops are few and far between because of massive area and are expensive and infrequent anyway. We aren't a densely populated country, people would have to travel a little bit of the way to get to use public transport. Park and ride in Galway was for cars only, ergo people who were not within walking distance. You say nobody lives in the "sticks" jesus have ever been to the west of Ireland.....? Arguing with you is like shaving with a bowling pin tbh.

[foggy_lad]

Originally Posted by yer man!

You do know there are a lot of people who live in the countryside whereby bus stops are few and far between because of massive area and are expensive and infrequent anyway. We aren't a densely populated country, people would have to travel a little bit of the way to get to use public transport. Park and ride in Galway was for cars only, ergo people who were not within walking distance. You say nobody lives in the "sticks" jesus have ever been to the west of Ireland.....? Arguing with you is like shaving with a bowling pin tbh.

Currently you cant buy an on-line ticket or even reserve a seat for the western rail corridor which is described as an inter-city service and even if you could it is going to cost more and take much longer than the express bus service! Why would anyone spend more for a longer less comfortable journey?

[yer man!]

Originally Posted by foggy_lad

Currently you cant buy an on-line ticket or even reserve a seat for the western rail corridor which is described as an inter-city service and even if you could it is going to cost more and take much longer than the express bus service! Why would anyone spend more for a longer less comfortable journey?

Exactly!
1. Online ticketing needs to be introduced.
2. Must be cheaper than the bus.
3. Free parking if not already at all stations along route.
4. Advertise a reasonable price on facebook/ billboards on the limerick to Galway route/ local papers/ twitter/ radio stations/ college newspapers!!! (17000 students in Nuig read this as its free)
5. Really good student deals and combined rail and city bus tickets as most people need bus once in city.
6. Must be able to be in Galway city before half 8 in the morning for commuters.
7. Advertise tax saver tickets, some of these are a bargain.
8. Skip stations where there are no ppl, eg. Ardrahan.
9. Focus on commuter rail instead of intercity.
10. If there was money the construction of proper bend befor limerick junction for trains going to cork would be good. One train could travel from cork to Galway and back again, this is horrible to travel on a bus and is expensive. Obviously this is a dream bit still this would bethe only way an intercity service could exist in my opinion.

These ideas aren't perfect but they are relatively low cost and could make an impact. City council are making any effort to introduce park and rides in suburbs and satellite towns but they have no control over what Irishrail does.

[foggy_lad]

Originally Posted by yer man!

Exactly!
1. Online ticketing needs to be introduced.
2. Must be cheaper than the bus.
3. Free parking if not already at all stations along route.
4. Advertise a reasonable price on facebook/ billboards on the limerick to Galway route/ local papers/ twitter/ radio stations/ college newspapers!!! (17000 students in Nuig read this as its free)
5. Really good student deals and combined rail and city bus tickets as most people need bus once in city.
6. Must be able to be in Galway city before half 8 in the morning for commuters.
7. Advertise tax saver tickets, some of these are a bargain.
8. Skip stations where there are no ppl, eg. Ardrahan.
9. Focus on commuter rail instead of intercity.
10. If there was money the construction of proper bend befor limerick junction for trains going to cork would be good. One train could travel from cork to Galway and back again, this is horrible to travel on a bus and is expensive. Obviously this is a dream bit still this would bethe only way an intercity service could exist in my opinion.

These ideas aren't perfect but they are relatively low cost and could make an impact. City council are making any effort to introduce park and rides in suburbs and satellite towns but they have no control over what Irishrail does.

All those suggestions if implemented would increase passengeers from the average of 8 per train to maybe 10 per train but the reduction in revenue and increase in cost to the tax payer would be massive meaning the line would be losing even more than before. May as well introduce free travel on the line for a month and see how popular it is but that should have been done in January or February to give a true number without school breaks etc upsetting the figures.

[yer man!]

Originally Posted by foggy_lad

All those suggestions if implemented would increase passengeers from the average of 8 per train to maybe 10 per train but the reduction in revenue and increase in cost to the tax payer would be massive meaning the line would be losing even more than before. May as well introduce free travel on the line for a month and see how popular it is but that should have been done in January or February to give a true number without school breaks etc upsetting the figures.

Well currently they are doing absolutely nothing about attracting people.... And not every train has 8 people on boards, it's obvious if you see the train in the morning that it's much busier than lunch time trains which have nobody on them.

[corktina]

they are doing absolutley nothing to attract people to most of the other lines too.
Wouldn't it make sense to promote the lines which have a chance of breaking even rather than this white elephant?

We can't condone IE promoting this line just to make it more likely for WoT to say they were right all along. It has to make some sort of sense!

[trail man]

Originally Posted by corktina

they are doing absolutley nothing to attract people to most of the other lines too.
Wouldn't it make sense to promote the lines which have a chance of breaking even rather than this white elephant?

We can't condone IE promoting this line just to make it more likely for WoT to say they were right all along. It has to make some sort of sense!

One thing is sure IE is a disgrace...badly run fiasco...trying to deal with them
in any shape or form..
ask the greenway people in west limerick in what they had to deal with in trying to convert the old line.. IE are a law onto themsleves and should be disbanded..
Heaven forbid if the rest of the line on the wrc is designated a greenway IE
Will wash their hands of it and let the greenway people and the farmers Battle it out for years.. IT WOULD BE LIKE FRANK KELLYS famous song a christmas countdown ...IE ARE PATHETIC..